Etymologies

Examples

I'd listened in growing consternation, for there was no doubt what was coming, thanks to the blind stubborn folly (aye, and vanity) of that pig-headed yokel - the besiegers would storm the engine-house, their first ranks would be cut down by the defenders 'fire, and when the drunken rabble finally burst in by sheer weight of numbers they'd butcher every last one of us in a fury of spite and vengeance.

That had been less than a year ago, and here I was like a rat in a pit awaiting the terriers ... and around me the blackness was fading to grey, figures and objects were coming into view in the dim interior of the engine-house, and in the distance a cock was crowing.

For the interior of that engine-house looked and sounded like the Inferno gone wild: the building reverberated to the incessant din of rifle fire, glass was shattering, timber splintering, men were screaming and cursing, and all in half-darkness, for there wasn't a light in the place bar the flashes from the guns, and only torch-glare outside.

Now it was behind me, the nightmare which I could hardly believe had ever happened - the rush of action in the dark, the shouted commands, the bearded faces hurrying by, the crack of shots, and the inferno of the engine-house ... and here I was, safe and sound bar the two smarting wounds in my neck and knee, rattling over the ties out of that awful world, and back to life again.

Not that I was faking when I keeled over maiden-like in the engine-house - I was convinced that the Great Peeler had His hand on my collar at last, and only when I came to and recalled that the pandemonium around me was not Hell after all, did I discover that my wounds, while painful, were not fatal, or even serious.

It would have been tedious and confusing to footnote them all, and most of them are trivial: it hardly matters whether John Brown visited the rifle works in person, or at which end of the Potomac bridge the watchmen were posted, or whether Lee was on horseback, or what kind of hat Jeb Stuart wore, or the precise moment when Brown retreated to the engine-house, or the exact place and time of certain incidents.

One ghastly fact had imprinted itself on my mind: she had men watching the engine-house, they'd have seen the Marines bring out Joe's body under cover of darkness and bury it by the river - they'd dig it up for certain, and find two bullets in his back ... and who'd put them there, then?

I've heard it asked since (at a safe distance) by the usual valiant know-alls, and the answer is because my old chief Robert Lee knew his business, that's why, and wasn't about to waste lives, and risk the hostages, by brawling in the dark when he could wait until daylight - and until the spirits of those in the engine-house were that much lower, and possibly open to reason.